A consortium led by Space X founder Elon Musk has offered $97.4 billion to take control over Sam Altman-led OpenAI, further escalating a legal dispute with the artificial intelligence company. Reportedly, Musk had sued OpenAI several times last year. He co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and had invested at least $45 million in the company. However, Musk had to exit after a power struggle between him and Altman.
Now, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has rejected the deal saying, "No thank you but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want." Altman has shared this on Musk owned-social media platform X (formerly called Twitter).
According to Musk's attorney, Marc Toberoff, Musk, along with his AI startup xAI and a consortium of investment firms, wants to take control of OpenAI and restore its original mission as a non-profit research lab.
On the other hand, OpenAI claims it needs to transition to a for-profit to “secure funds needed for developing the best AI models,” according to a Reuters report.
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"It's time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens,” Elon Musk said in a statement on February 10. However, Microsoft, the biggest financial backer of OpenAI and Elon Musk, did not respond to queries till the time of writing, the report stated.
Reports suggest that after his exit from OpenAI, the Tesla and SpaceX owner founded competitor xAI in 2023. If the offer of the Musk-led consortium is accepted, xAI could merge with OpenAI, according to a Wall Street Journal report. As per the Reuters report sources revealed that xAI recently raised around $6 billion from investors for a valuation of $40 billion.
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